Nerve Pain

What is nerve pain?

Nerve pain is a catchall phrase that is used to refer to a loosely associated group of pain disorders. It’s somewhat of a curious use of the phrase because, in a sense, all pain is nerve pain. Pain would not occur without nerves and the nervous system. No matter what the cause of pain, messages related to the cause are nerve impulses that travel along a system of nerves in the body, including the spinal cord and brain. So, again, in a sense, all pain is nerve pain. Nonetheless, the phrase ‘nerve pain’ is used to refer to a group of pain disorders that have some loosely associated features.

While not an exhaustive list, pain disorders that tend to get loosely referred to as nerve pain are the following:

There is no single feature that all these conditions have in common. Instead, they all have some features, which are associated with nerve symptoms. These nerve symptoms are the following:

Burning or electrical-like pain

Numbness and/or tingling

Heightened sensitivities to pain or touch

Sometimes, these symptoms are associated with actual nerve damage, such as in post-surgical pain or neuropathy. Sometimes, though, it is associated with excessively reactive and sensitive nerves, such as in fibromyalgia and complex regional pain syndrome.

Is there a cure for nerve pain?

Typically, there are no cures for nerve pain symptoms and the pain disorders associated with them. Healthcare providers and their patients focus on management of the symptoms. Chronic pain management has two broad goals:

Reduce symptoms to the extent possible

Reduce the emotional distress and functional impairments that are associated with the symptoms

The first goal involves reducing pain and other symptoms. The second goal is two-fold: to reduce the fear, anger, anxiety, depression or sleep problems that tend to go along with living with chronic pain, and reducing the sense of disability that tends to occur with pain. Overall, these goals amount to assisting the patient to live well, work, and be involved in life, despite having some chronic nerve pain symptoms.

The healthcare system has different ways it pursues chronic pain management. Broadly speaking, there are three different types of pain clinics in our healthcare system:

Most, but not all, of these therapies have been shown in research to be effective in reducing pain. It is important to note, however, that ‘effective’ in this context does not mean ‘curative.’ Rather, it means that many of these therapies are helpful in reducing pain, but some degree of pain will typically remain. Also, it is important to note that these therapies, even the ones with demonstrated effectiveness, are not all equally effective. The research shows that some are more effective than others.

Murray J. McAllister, PsyD, is the executive director of the Institute for Chronic Pain (ICP). The ICP is an educational and public policy think tank. Its mission is to lead the field in making pain management more empirically supported. Additionally, the ICP provides Academic quality information on chronic pain that is approachable to patients and their families. Dr. McAllister is also the clinical director of pain services for Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute (CKRI), part of Allina Health, in Minneapolis, MN. Among other services, CKRI provides chronic pain rehabilitation services on a residential and outpatient basis.